


I Don't Know How To Write A Oneshot But I Did Anyways (pearlina week)

by floralQuaFloral



Series: fqf's Pearlina Week Fics [1]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, They're lesbians craig, Turf War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 20:58:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralQuaFloral/pseuds/floralQuaFloral
Summary: Day 2 of Pearlina Week: "Color Pulse"Pearl and Marina make an excellent team, in life as in Turf War. How unfortunate, then, they when Turf Wars matter the most - during Splatfests - they have to play on opposite teams.Alternative summary: Pearl is too gay to beat her gf at Turf War





	I Don't Know How To Write A Oneshot But I Did Anyways (pearlina week)

**Author's Note:**

> I've never even attempted a oneshot before this. Had no idea how to tell a story with only 1000-6000 words.  
> Now I've learned: absolutely not like this. i just sat down and spent about eight hours straight writing. it's a mess. i'm sorry.

     For as much as she loved bragging, Pearl didn't tend to think of herself as any sort of Turf War champion. While she would never admit it, on the air or in private, she knew she had to attribute at least her fair share of success to her tendency to play alongside Marina. The occasional day spent turfing herself - when her girlfriend was busy, or tired, or otherwise preoccupied, but Pearl had too much energy to burn it off any other way - tended to come as a not-particularly-gentle reminder that she was not _nearly_ as effective alone.

     That wasn't to say Marina carried her on their teams - rather, the octoling had an affinity for the kind of tactical thinking and snappy decision making that Pearl tended to miss, and more than that was a grounding presence. When they were working together, they were a nearly seamless team, maintaining a flawless balance between watching each other's backs and dividing their attention to the different things that needed to be done. Controlling space, inking terrain, pushing on enemy turf, all at once in complete synergy.

     And unfortunately, this was more a result of Marina's ability to assess a situation and their tight bond than a sign of some immense natural talent for Turf War. Without her more level-headed half, Pearl tended to get distracted in battle. Chasing distant opponents at the expense of her teammates, putting too much focus on painting a particularly tricky corner to notice the enemy team flanking her, or just slipping and falling out of bounds _again_ because she wasn't looking where she was going - she tended to be just on the wrong side of impulsive when it came to inksports.

     Splatfests, however, were a whole different beast.

     It was easy to get hyped for Turf War during a Splatfest. The excitement buzzing through the plaza on Splatfest nights was almost always enough to get Pearl pumped to join in, even after the long performances she and Marina gave in the Square. The octoling, too, wasn't immune to the hype, so at least once or twice each fest, when neither girl felt too tired, they'd almost always find the time to join a few matches together. It was a lot like when they played together normally, but at night, and they were both more or less running on just adrenaline after singing for hours at the tower, and with fancy ink colors...

     And, of course, they couldn't request to play on the same team.

     That was definitely the hardest part. Pearl couldn't get enough of playing Turf War by Marina's side, following her movements and covering her blind spots. She didn't mind playing by herself from time to time, even if she wasn't the most useful teammate. But playing _against_ Marina? Torturous, absolutely torturous, a fate worse than death that she always conveniently forgot by the next time she decided it would be a good idea.

     It was like playing alone, only Marina really _was_ there, just barely out of reach. Her natural state in a Turf War tended to be watching Marina, a habit that brought great success when they were on the same side. Focusing on the things that caught Marina's attention was at least a few dozen steps up from just following her own impulses. But when Pearl was on the opposite team, it tended to backfire spectacularly. More often than not, she would run straight to the center of the battlefield, catch sight of Marina, and stare like a lost child until someone came by and smashed her with a roller. There had been a handful of times she wished very much to forget when she had fallen into step right behind her girlfriend, once for almost a full minute, only for Marina to turn around, notice her, and blast her with her Brella. The taller girl always remarked after the fact how lucky she was to catch Pearl's ambush before she could get her, but Pearl herself was forced to bear the terrible burden of knowledge: _No, that wasn't supposed to be a_ _ _sneak attack,__ she would absolutely **never** tell anyone. _I just forgot_ _ _I wasn't on her team for a hot minute.__

     There were a handful of other details, too, seemingly just to make things harder. The music during Splatfests was Pearl and Marina's own, and, as it turned out, there were few things more distracting for a gay squid than hearing her girlfriend's voice flow through the speaker system. Pearl could listen to Marina all day, singing or speaking. Hearing her always sparked at least a small rush of affection, a light and pleasing feeling that made the world just a tad brighter around her. Such feelings were not helpful in focusing on a Turf War - all too often, Pearl would have to fight back a lovesick smile, and all too often the effort would leave her open to being splatted. Or laughed at by her team.

     If there were to be one saving grace, anything at all to take pride in, Pearl at least knew that the ordeal affected Marina as well. She did get some satisfaction knowing that her presence threw off Marina too, to some degree. But because the universe is cruel and unfair, she had no such luxury as to see Marina blush or fumble her weapon or completely mess up a Super Jump.

     No, instead, Marina tended to play _aggressive_ when she was flustered.

     It was, perhaps, less optimal her normal strategy, and thus an advantage for Pearl's team. But it was generally rather difficult to appreciate - getting chased down and splatted like some kind of Salmonid, getting grabbed and chucked skyward (definitely not a legal move), and one time even getting clobbered over the head with a Blaster.

     That last one, an incident in which Pearl swam directly up to Marina to say hi (ill-advised, in hindsight) and was immediately whacked over the head by her startled girlfriend. And, quite unfortunately for Pearl, Marina had not been using anything _close_ to a valid melee weapon, and so rather than being coated in enemy ink and exploding she was simply sent sprawling by the hard plastic nozzle of the Blaster. True, it did properly fluster Marina - she couldn't stop stammering awkward apologies until long after the round had ended - but it wasn't really worth the awful headache that lasted the rest of the night. There were ways to make Marina blush that didn't require giving herself a concussion in the middle of a Turf War.

     At least, Pearl considered, Marina still hadn't noticed. If her girlfriend knew how awkward she got when they had to compete in the turf arena, she would _never_ live it down. She had more than earned it, too, with how much she had teased Marina about the Blaster incident - after enough time, Marina had started seeing the humor in it too, rather than bursting into apologies the moment it was mentioned - and Pearl knew how much her girlfriend enjoyed teasing her. If Marina had _any_ idea how flustered and lost she tended to get during Splatfest battles, the inkling was at least content that she would be aware.

\--🎧👑--

     Marina wrapped Pearl in a hug, subtlety aiming her body away from the television and towards the bedroom. "You didn't get much sleep last night either, babe."

     Pearl hugged back, but continued to crane her neck to keep trying to watch the television. "It'll be fine! There's only a couple episodes left. Then I'll go to bed, for real."

     "Mhm," said the octoling, now holding Pearl pointing towards the door. She began pulling gently backwards, nudging her girlfriend towards their room. It was a tried and true strategy for getting her girlfriend to go to sleep - get her with an unassuming hug, turn her away from the screen, and get her into the bed. The slower she went, the less likely Pearl would notice what she was doing, until it was already -

     "Hey!" Pearl squeaked indignantly. "I see what you're doing here!" She moved to squirm out of the hug, but stopped as soon as she was free enough to turn towards the television again. "You can't pull that trick on me. I'm unshakeable," she said.

     "Unshakeable?" Marina's eyebrows raised.

     "For eel! Your silly tricks can't break my focus. It'll take a lot more than a hug to distract _me."_

     There was an unwavering smugness in Pearl's tone that forced Marina to hold her tongue. She _could_ make a comment about Pearl's focus during their most recent Turf War. It required a concentrated effort _not_ to make some remark about how, say, Pearl had gotten that dreamy-eyed, distracted expression more than twelve times in a single three-minute match. Or how she had seen Pearl walk straight into an enemy no less than six times that same match. Or perhaps relating to how Pearl had only last match followed Marina around for a solid twenty seconds without making any move to attack, like a confused squid-shaped autobomb, before Marina turned around and splatted her.

     (Not that she'd been counting, or anything.)

     It was certainly tempting to make some joke along those lines to her 'unshakeable' girlfriend, just to hear that scandalized squawk she always made when Marina got her good on something, but instead she held her tongue. "I see. Sure thing, babe." As much as she loved teasing Pearl... she just didn't have the heart for that one. Not yet. It would have to wait until Pearl was being _really_ smug, she decided.

     "You bet," said Pearl, clearly already fixated on her show again.

     "Alright," laughed Marina. "And I'm sure hugs _and_ forehead kisses won't work, either." To punctuate, she leaned around her girlfriend - who was still facing away from her, towards the television - and left a soft peck on the top of her head.

     "Huh?" Pearl turned and looked up, the show forgotten. "Hold on. I'm listening."

     Marina laughed and clicked off the screen, pulling her girlfriend into the bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> The 8 hours writing thing... not really an exaggeration. I don't know how I did it either.  
> So I'm really not all that proud of this work - I didn't really know what I was doing until the scene at the very end, and once I got there the story kind of lost focus.  
> Buuuuut...... I figured I might as well share it. I don't like it, but I don't feel like it's bad enough to make anyone's day worse, so no reason not to, right? And I've learned from this. I plan on writing for the AU prompt next and it will hopefully come out a lot better thanks to what I learned from writing this.
> 
> If you read down this far, thank you very much for sticking through! If you've got anything to say, I'd always always always appreciate hearing about it in a review. I've learned a lot by myself from writing this, but you might have something I haven't considered, and I'd love to learn as much as I can for the next oneshot. ❤  
> (btw, if you're wondering, the valentine's one is updating this week as normal. not leaving that behind for pearlina week)


End file.
